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- Tom Lovejoy, a distinguished and influential conservation biologist who helped catalyze a world motion to save lots of life on Earth as we all know it, has died. He was 80.
- Lovejoy was generally known as a pioneer of recent conservation efforts, a passionate advocate for wildlife and wild locations, and a giant thinker who proposed daring and progressive concepts.
- Lovejoy is credited with coining the time period “organic variety”, growing the idea of “debt-for-nature” swap applications, and being one of many earliest to sound the alarm concerning the international extinction disaster.
- “Tom was a beloved icon within the conservation area: a mentor to many, a buddy to all,” stated conservation biologist and ethnobotanist, Mark Plotkin. “He fought for biodiversity and towards local weather change by his concepts, writings, tasks, initiatives and all he skilled and impressed.”
Thomas E. Lovejoy III, a distinguished and influential conservation biologist who helped catalyze a world motion to save lots of the Amazon rainforest and served as an advisor to a variety of worldwide leaders on environmental issues, has died. He was 80.
Lovejoy was generally known as a pioneer of recent conservation efforts, a passionate advocate for wildlife and wild locations, and a giant thinker who proposed daring and progressive concepts to guard the planet. He’s credited with coining the time period “organic variety”, growing the idea of “debt-for-nature” swap applications, and being one of many earliest to warn concerning the extent of species loss worldwide and elevate the problem of local weather change as a world drawback.
“Tom, greater than anybody else in historical past, was chargeable for placing Brazil, Amazonia, and the entire of South America on the worldwide conservation agenda again within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties,” Russ Mittermeier, now chief conservation officer at Re:WILD, who labored with Lovejoy for almost 50 years, informed Mongabay. “On high of that, he was among the many very first to deliver each biodiversity and local weather change to the eye of the world, and was no doubt the best of all in linking these two essential points, one thing that he continued to do to the current day.”
Lovejoy led the Minimal Important Dimension of Ecosystems undertaking within the Amazon, which vastly improved biologists’ understanding of the impacts of habitat fragmentation and helped spark international concern about deforestation within the Amazon. He additionally helped remodel the World Wildlife Fund from what was then a small NGO right into a conservation behemoth engaged on points on international scales and based the general public tv sequence Nature, which knowledgeable and impressed numerous folks.
“In some ways he was the unique ‘biopolitician’—a top-notch scientist who was simply as snug rubbing shoulders with Prime Ministers and Senators as he was at being a muddy-kneed area biologist,” conservation biologist William F. Laurance, who took over management of the Minimal Important Dimension of Ecosystems undertaking from Lovejoy earlier than the initiative was renamed the Organic Dynamics of Forest Fragments Mission (BDFFP), informed Mongabay. “The BDFFP advanced into one of many world’s most vital area experiments and analysis stations and Tom used it as a platform to introduce politicians, dignitaries, and celebrities to the wonders of the Amazon rainforest.”
Lovejoy was a prolific author whose work spanned papers printed in prestigious educational journals to thought items that appeared on the planet’s most learn newspapers. He gained many accolades, from the Tyler Prize for Environmental Achievement to the BBVA Basis Frontiers of Data Award to the Blue Planet Prize.
Lovejoy labored in lots of capacities over the course of his six decade profession in conservation, together with serving as an advisor to a number of presidents, The World Financial institution, the United Nations Basis, and quite a few NGOs. He continued to be actively engaged with conservation by the ultimate weeks of his life.
“Tom was a beloved icon within the conservation area: a mentor to many, a buddy to all,” conservation biologist and ethnobotanist, Mark Plotkin of the Amazon Conservation Workforce, informed Mongabay. “He fought for biodiversity and towards local weather change by his concepts, writings, tasks, initiatives and all he skilled and impressed.”
This can be a growing information story. Mongabay plans to publish a extra detailed obituary on Tom Lovejoy at a later date.
Dec 25, 2021 20:00 Pacific replace: Russ Mittermeier’s quote was up to date with further remark.
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